Jon Rahm says PGA Tour players feel 'betrayed' by LIV merger

Jon Rahm isn’t biting his tongue when it comes to his true feelings about the PGA Tour and LIV Golf working together. The Masters champion said players on the tour felt “betrayed” when learning the news about the agreement.

During his U.S. Open press conference on Tuesday, Rahm was asked about the shocking news about the PGA Tour and LIV Golf “merger.” He said that, while he believes there PGA Tour has listened to its players on a variety of matters, there are some question marks about what’s happening right now.

“I think, to an extent, they value player opinion,” Rahm said. “They’ve certainly heard us throughout the whole process on some of the issues.

“It gets to a point where you wanna have faith in management. I wanna have faith that this is the best case for us, but that’s clearly not the consensus. I think the general feel is that a lot of people feel a bit of betrayal from management.”

Rahm admitted that he understands why everything was kept secret. Still, it was hard to learn the news second-hand, especially the week before a major championship.

“It’s not easy as a player to wake up and see this bombshell,” Rahm said. “That’s where we’re all in a state of limbo. … It’s a state of uncertainty that we don’t love.”

Rahm says he was having ‘normal morning’ when news broke

A lot of PGA Tour players complained about the way they learned the news. Collin Morikawa tweeted that he “loves finding out morning news on Twitter,” shortly after the announcement.

Rahm said he learned the news in similar fashion.

“I was at home, taking care of the kids,” he said. “No, I was just having my normal morning, making coffee and breakfast and basically texts just started flowing in. I thought my phone was gonna catch on fire at one point. … I think, at one point, I told (my wife) Kelley, ‘I’m just gonna throw my phone in a drawer and not look at it for the next four hours because I can’t deal with it.'”

Rahm didn’t mention anything specifically about LIV Golf, unlike fellow PGA Tour star Rory McIlroy. The perceived “voice” of the league still said he hates the Saudi-backed LIV organization, despite the recent news.

“I still hate LIV,” McIlroy said. “I hope it goes away. And I would fully expect that it does. And I think that’s where the distinction here is. This is the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the PIF. Very different from LIV.”